Knocking on New Physics' door with a Scalar Resonance

We speculate about the origin of the recent excess at ~750 GeV in diphoton resonance searches observed by the ATLAS and CMS experiments using the first 13 TeV data. Its interpretation as a new scalar resonance produced in gluon fusion and decaying to photons is consistent with all relevant exclusion bounds from the 8 TeV LHC run. We provide a simple phenomenological framework to parametrize the properties of the new resonance and show in a model-independent way that, if the scalar is produced in gluon fusion, additional new colored and charged particles are required. Finally, we discuss some interpretations in various concrete setups, such as a singlet (pseudo-) scalar, composite Higgs, and the MSSM.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Extraction of the ATLAS 13 TeV diphoton signal and 8 TeV ZZ bound corrected, no sizable change in the final combination. Presentation improved, references added, and conclusions unchanged. Version to appear in EPJ

Implications of the discovery of a Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV

The rather precise knowledge of the mass of the Higgs boson and of its couplings has important consequences for the physical phenomena taking place at the Fermi scale. We analyze some of these implications in the most motivated frameworks for physics at that energies - supersymmetry, models of a composite Higgs boson, and the Standard Model itself. At the same time, precision experiments in flavour physics require a highly non-generic structure of flavour and CP transitions. In any model of electroweak symmetry breaking with a relatively low scale of new phenomena, as motivated by naturalness, some mechanism has to be found in order to keep unwanted flavour effects under control. We devote particular attention to the consequences of the approximate U(2)^3 symmetry exhibited by the quarks of the Standard Model. The combined analysis of the indirect constraints from flavour, Higgs and electroweak physics will allow us to outline a picture of some most natural models of physics near the Fermi scale. Although non trivially, a few models emerge that look capable of accommodating a 125 GeV Higgs boson, consistently with all the other constraints, with new particles in an interesting range for discovery at the LHC, as well as associated flavour signals. This is particularly interesting in view of the forthcoming improvements in the direct experimental investigation of that energies. Finally, the measurement of the last parameter of the Standard Model - the Higgs quartic coupling - has important consequences even if no new physics is present close to the Fermi scale: its near-critical value, which puts the electroweak vacuum in a metastable state close to a phase transition, may have an interesting connection with Planck-scale physics. We derive the bound for electroweak vacuum stability with full two-loop precision, and explore some possible implication of near-criticality.Comment: PhD thesis. 223 pages, 46 figures, 24 table

K→πννˉK\to\pi\nu\bar\nu and ϵ′/ϵ\epsilon'/\epsilon in Simplified New Physics Models

The decays $K^+\to\pi^+\nu\bar\nu$ and $K_L\to\pi^0\nu\bar\nu$, being the theoretically cleanest rare decays of mesons, are very sensitive probes of New Physics. In view of the excellent prospects of reaching the Standard Model sensitivity for $K^+\to\pi^+\nu\bar\nu$ by the NA62 experiment at CERN and for $K_L\to\pi^0\nu\bar\nu$ by the KOTO experiment at J-PARC, we study them in the simplest extensions of the SM in which stringent correlations between these two decays and other flavour observables are present. We first consider simple models with tree-level Z and Z' contributions in which either MFV or a $U(2)^3$ symmetry is imposed on the quark flavour-violating couplings. We then compare the resulting correlations with those present in generic models in which the latter couplings are arbitrary, subject to constraints from $\Delta F=2$ processes, electroweak and collider data. Of particular interest are the correlations with $\epsilon'/\epsilon$ and $K_L\to\mu^+\mu^-$ which limit the size of NP contributions to $K^+\to\pi^+\nu\bar\nu$ and $K_L\to\pi^0\nu\bar\nu$, depending on the Dirac structure of couplings and the relevant operators. But in MFV also the constraint from $B_s\to\mu^+\mu^-$ turns out to be important. We take into account the recent results from lattice QCD and large N approach that indicate $\epsilon'/\epsilon$ in the SM to be significantly below the data. While in many models the enhancement of $\epsilon'/\epsilon$ implies a suppression of $K_L\to\pi^0\nu\bar\nu$, we present two models in which these observables can be simultaneously enhanced relative to SM predictions. A correlation between $K^+\to\pi^+\nu\bar\nu$ and $B\to K(K^*)\mu^+\mu^-$, found by us in the simple models considered here, should be of interest for NA62 and LHCb experimentalists at CERN in the coming years. The one with $B\to K(K^*)\nu\bar\nu$ will be tested at Belle II.Comment: 32 pages, 6 figures, 1 table. v2: updated analysis in section 4, matches version published in JHE

Toward a coherent solution of diphoton and flavor anomalies

We propose a coherent explanation for the 750 GeV diphoton anomaly and the hints of deviations from Lepton Flavor Universality in B decays in terms a new strongly interacting sector with vectorlike confinement. The diphoton excess arises from the decay of one of the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons of the new sector, while the flavor anomalies are a manifestation of the exchange of the corresponding vector resonances (with masses in the 1.5-2.5 TeV range). We provide explicit examples (with detailed particle content and group structure) of the new sector, discussing both the low-energy flavor-physics phenomenology and the signatures at high $p_T$. We show that specific models can provide an excellent fit to all available data. A key feature of all realizations is a sizable broad excess in the tails of $\tau^+ \tau^-$ invariant mass distribution in $p p \to \tau^+ \tau^-$, that should be accessible at the LHC in the near future.Comment: v2: 32 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables. Published version. Extended discussion about the flavor structure of the model and high-PT phenomenology, typos corrected. Added note about the relevance of the paper in light of the absence of the diphoton signal at the LH

B-physics anomalies: a guide to combined explanations

Motivated by additional experimental hints of Lepton Flavour Universality violation in B decays, both in charged- and in neutral-current processes, we analyse the ingredients necessary to provide a combined description of these phenomena. By means of an Effective Field Theory (EFT) approach, based on the hypothesis of New Physics coupled predominantly to the third generation of left-handed quarks and leptons, we show how this is possible. We demonstrate, in particular, how to solve the problems posed by electroweak precision tests and direct searches with a rather natural choice of model parameters, within the context of a $U(2)_q \times U(2)_\ell$ flavour symmetry. We further exemplify the general EFT findings by means of simplified models with explicit mediators in the TeV range: coloured scalar or vector leptoquarks and colour-less vectors. Among these, the case of an $SU(2)_L$-singlet vector leptoquark emerges as a particularly simple and successful framework.Comment: 33 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables. Extended discussion and one plot added on single production of leptoquarks, typos corrected, references adde

Probing Lepton Flavour Universality with K→πννˉK \to \pi \nu \bar\nu decays

We analyse the rare processes $K \to \pi\nu\bar\nu$ in view of the recent hints of violations of Lepton Flavour Universality (LFU) observed in B meson decays. If, as suggested by present data, the new interactions responsible for LFU violations couple mainly to the third generation of left-handed fermions, $K \to \pi\nu\bar\nu$ decays turn out to be particularly interesting: these are the only kaon decays with third-generation leptons (the $\tau$ neutrinos) in the final state. In order to relate B-physics anomalies and K decays we adopt an Effective Field Theory approach, assuming that the new interactions satisfy an approximate $U(2)_q\times U(2)_\ell$ flavour symmetry. In this framework we show that O(1) deviations from the Standard Model predictions in $K \to \pi\nu\bar\nu$ branching ratios, closely correlated to similar effects in $B \to K^{(*)}\nu\bar\nu$, are naturally expected. The correlation of $\mathcal{B}(K \to \pi\nu\bar\nu)$, $\mathcal{B}(B \to K^{(*)}\nu\bar\nu)$, and the LFU violations in B decays would provide a very valuable tool to shed more light on this interesting phenomenon.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure